


Come Haunting or High Water

by burglebezzlement



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Autumn, F/F, Ghosts, Hair Brushing, Literal Sleeping Together, Paranormal Investigators, Power Outage, Rain, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-06 04:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16381622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Erin’s learning there are things you can’t plan for in life. Like getting called to a bust upstate at the Mayor’s aunt’s antique store. Or getting stranded by the weather. Or Holtzmann.Make that especially Holtzmann.





	Come Haunting or High Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rina (rinadoll)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinadoll/gifts).



> Happy Trick or Treat!
> 
> Any resemblance between the establishments in this fic and real establishments are purely coincidental.

It’s a warm autumn day, and the High Line is overflowing with tourists. 

Erin straggles behind Holtz as they walk through the park, past the careful plantings, the art installations. The park is only as wide as the former rail bed it’s built on, but there’s so many people walking past them — Erin hears accents and languages from all over the world. 

“Come on.” Holtz takes Erin’s hand and pulls her through the crowd. “I want to buy you a paleta.”

“What’s that?”

Holtz waxes rhapsodical about paletas, which turn out to be Mexican ice pops. But when they get to the stand, it’s already switched over to serving pan de muerto and Mexican hot chocolate for the autumn. Holtz insists on buying both. 

The pan de muerto turns out to be delicious, orange-flavored buns, which are gone quickly. But Erin nurses her hot chocolate until they’re all the way at the north end of the park, where the elevated track swings out around a railyard, and the crowds get thinner.

The Ghostbusters all live at the firehouse now. It happened organically. Patty moved her library in, before following herself, a few weeks later. Erin moved in a month later, when her lease was up. Abby moved in when the the previous dean of the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute got out of prison and found her still house-sitting. Holtz, the last to move in, refused to say why she had to move so suddenly, but one morning Erin woke up in her bedroom on the third floor and smelled solder from the room next door, and that was it — all four Ghostbusters, living together.

It’s taken time for Erin to get used to living with the others. Get used to having people care about her. She knows she’s still prickly sometimes, when Abby insists on the four of them meeting up for The X-Files. When Holtz shows up to drag her out for the day. 

Erin hasn’t figured out how Holtz always knows when Erin’s getting overwhelmed, when she needs a break — Erin herself isn’t great at that. But Holtz knows, somehow. She’ll show up, drag Erin off for a late lunch or early dinner. Sometimes they go sit in City Hall Park with sandwiches and rate the passing dogs on how far they’ve diverged from wolves. Once, Holtz dragged Erin uptown to a cafe that serves raw cookie dough like ice cream.

Today, Holtz has dragged her to the High Line. It’s sunny, warm for late October, and Erin leans back on the bench and lets herself relax.

Maybe she’s getting better at that.

“I like all the people,” Holtz says, as they stare out across the river at New Jersey. She bumps her shoulder into Erin’s, and Erin tries not to think about the way it makes her feel warm, all through. “I know it’s overwhelming, but… sometimes it’s nice to be overwhelmed.”

Erin can understand that, maybe. She’s spent so long trying to control everything in her life that there’s something seductive about letting go. Letting herself be lost in a crowd, so long as she’s lost in the crowd with Holtz.

* * *

When Erin looks up from her computer, Holtz is leaning against the doorframe of her office. “We’re going antiquing,” she says.

Erin leans back in her chair and scrubs her hands over her eyes. “I can’t right now,” she says. “I promised Abby I’d do the final checks before we submit this paper.”

Holtz raises one eyebrow. “I thought that was finished.”

“It’s not,” Erin starts, but Holtz interrupts her.

“I heard what Abby said this morning.”

Erin flushes, remembering Abby’s words over breakfast. _The paper’s ready to go, Gilbert. If you don’t trust our research now, you never will._

“I still don’t have time,” Erin says. Abby’s wrong. She just needs to check the math one more time. She needs to be totally sure. 

Holtz shakes her head. “This isn’t another date.”

She keeps talking, but Erin’s not hearing anything past _another date_. Another date. Is that why Holtz keeps bringing Erin places, keeps insisting on buying sandwiches and hot chocolate and — Erin feels like she can’t breathe. She’s thought about it, thought about Holtz and her together like that, more than she’s willing to admit, even to herself, but —

“Erin?” Holtz steps closer and sweeps Erin’s bangs off her forehead with her hand. She leans in to look into Erin’s eyes, like she’s checking for concussion. “Did you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Erin says, quickly, even though she didn’t. Even though she’s having trouble thinking about anything but the feeling of Holtz’s hand on her forehead. “I’m fine. Wait, why do we have to go?”

“The Mayor calls, and we answer.” Holtz stands back up, looking concerned. “Patty’s over in Staten Island at some archive, and Abby’s got an interview with that ghosthunting magazine you guys read.”

“Popular Hauntings.” Erin sighs. “Fine.”

* * *

Ecto 2 is Holtz’s baby, but you wouldn’t know that from the way she weaves through the late-afternoon New York traffic, siren blaring, lights flashing.

Erin’s riding shotgun, trying not to wince as Holtz skates through an intersection just as the light turns from yellow to red. She gives up on pointing out potential obstacles, but she does protest when Holtz squeezes between a police car and a dump truck in a construction zone.

“We’re going to get pulled over,” Erin says.

Holtz doesn’t look away from the road. “And then we tell them that the Mayor’s favorite aunt needs us. I think we can beat that ticket.”

“Oh.” Erin leans back. “So where are we going?”

“You doing okay, Gilbert?”

The words _another date_ are still bouncing around Erin’s head. She’s not. She’s really, really not.

“I’m fine,” she says. “Just stressed about the paper. Can you explain what’s going on again?”

* * *

The Mayor’s aunt lives two hours outside the city, where she runs an antique store called Treasures of Yesterday in a small town on the Hudson River. As they drive, they go from city streets to back roads, winding along the river, between the trees. Erin hasn’t been out of the city recently, and the leaves are all changing color, the trees brilliant against the flat gray of the cloudy sky.

The town, when they get there, is charming, full of awnings and cafes and gift shops. Erin can tell the locals haven’t seen anything like Ecto 2 from the way the people on the sidewalk stare as the Ghostbusters pull up in front of the shop.

The windows of the Mayor’s aunt’s antique shop are filled with old things. A hat box on a rocking chair, with a doll perched on top, shoe-button eyes gazing blankly. A willow-ware place setting sits beside a small, embroidered stool.

Erin lets Holtz unpack their gear. She pulls the jumpsuit on over her leggings and her University of Michigan sweatshirt. One of the best things about being a Ghostbuster: the lack of a dress code, written or unwritten.

Erin expects the Mayor’s aunt to be a wispy, elderly lady. Instead, she’s a solidly-built woman in late middle age, not that much older than the Mayor, her graying hair cropped close to her scalp.

“So you’re the Ghostbusters,” the woman says. “Cynthia Bradley. Good to meet you. I’m glad Braddy got you up here this quickly.”

Holtz’s eyes light up. “You call the Mayor ‘Braddy’?”

Cynthia ignores the question and waves them into the shop. “Are haunted objects real?” she asks.

“Maybe,” Erin says. The truth is, they’re not sure. Class IV spectral apparitions are rare, and if it’s unusual for the Ghostbusters to be able to trace identity of a particular spirit, it’s even rarer for them to trace the ownership of an individual object and determine whether the object itself is haunted. “We can do a scan with a PKE meter. What kinds of phenomena have you been experiencing?”

Cynthia leads them through the cluttered shop. Erin has a feeling the disorder is to convince tourists they’re finding deals, not because Cynthia doesn’t know precisely where every object in the shop is. 

“Bought a lot at a barn auction last week,” Cynthia says. “I do my own restoration and refinish work, so I can afford to bid higher than the other dealers. But when I got everything back to the shop and started working, I found this.”

She swings open a door marked Private, and leads them into an open area ringed with furniture in various stages of disassembly. The floor is vaguely sticky, like someone’s spilled varnish and it hasn’t dried yet. It smells like mineral spirits and sawdust, undercut by a smell Erin knows she should be able to place. Something oily. Something she’s smelled before.

“It’s this piece,” Cynthia says, leading them to a tall cabinet set away from the other furniture. “Damnedest thing.”

Erin looks back at Holtz, who’s now wearing a pillbox hat she must have borrowed from one of the shelves as they walked through the shop. The veil is of black netting, obscuring Holtz’s glasses from view, like she’s like some strange mixture of mad scientist and wronged woman from a noir film.

Erin gives her a look. A _we’re here to work_ look. 

Holtz winks at Erin, and then puts the hat aside on an ancient trunk before taking out the PKE meter and switching it on to scan the cabinet. There’s a slow whine from the machine, and the antennae start spinning lazily. 

“Might be something,” Holtz says. “Erin, you want to crack this case wide open?”

Erin takes a deep breath and opens the cabinet door. 

The PKE meter begins shrieking, the antennae spinning wildly. There’s a deep gurgling sound, like a dragon with indigestion, and a wave of ectoplasm vomits out of the cabinet, soaking Erin from head to toe. 

She slams the cabinet door shut again and tries to get the ectoplasm out of her face. Her hands are sticky, her lashes stuck together. Her nostrils are filled with it, the oily stench drowning out the smell of the varnish. She should have known.

“That’s what it does,” Cynthia says.

“Does it do anything else?” Holtz asks, curiously. She’s almost entirely ectoplasm free, the PKE still spinning wildly in her hand. 

Cynthia raises her eyebrows. “Isn’t that enough?”

“As Ghostbusters, we can officially tell you this cabinet is haunted,” Holtz says. “We can get rid of it for you.”

“I don’t want to get rid of the cabinet,” Cynthia says. “It’s original quarter-sawn mahogany. I want it exorcised.”

“Oh.” Holtz looks over at Erin. “Do we have anything that can exorcise original quarter-sawn mahogany without destroying it?”

* * *

It takes hours, but Erin and Holtz manage to coax the spirit from the cabinet without damaging the cabinet or the shop any further. Patty, back in the city, tracks down some essential information about the family whose auction Cynthia bought the cabinet from, and Holtz does some on-the-fly reengineering of their proton packs, and Erin gets soaked with ectoplasm again — but they capture the spirit in the end. One Josiah Culverbulch, along with his lucky shilling, is now locked safely away in Holtz’s containment unit for future research. 

The ectoplasm lingering on Erin’s coverall has been covered with another layer of grime, but she’s feeling triumphant. Triumphant and starving.

It starts raining as they pull away from Treasures of Yesterday, and Erin’s dreaming of the warm firehouse. It’s dark out, the water streaking on the windshield where one of the wipers is scraping against the glass. 

They’re on the road out of town when there’s a loud thunk, and a thin thread of steam begins rising out of Ecto 2’s hood.

Holtz steers the car over to the shoulder, pulling off just short of the ditch. “So, uh….”

Erin has a sinking feeling that Holtz knows something about this. “What happened?”

Holtz isn’t getting out of the car to check the engine, which seems like a bad sign. 

“What happened, Holtz?”

“In my defense, we needed that cable for the adjustments I made to the containment unit. And now the mayor’s aunt loves us, which means the mayor loves us, so really that was completely necessary. And I totally thought that straw would hold up long enough to get us back to the city.”

Erin slumps against the car window. She’s tired, she’s hungry, the exhilaration of capturing Josiah Culverbulch has worn off, and ectoplasm has begun seeping through her coverall. “Can we get a tow?”

“Maybe?” Holtz stares off into the distance for a bit. “Actually, maybe not. The cooling system for the nuclear containment is linked to the rear drive wheels, and I kiiiiiinda cut off the front tow hitch, so if we get towed it may throw off the differential —”

Holtz keeps talking, but Erin doesn’t follow all the mechanical details. She gets the gist, though. Ecto 2, currently stuffed full of their most sensitive equipment, plus a ghost, is dead. “So what do we do?”

“I can get the part tomorrow,” Holtz says. “Or tonight, if you let me break into an auto parts store.”

Erin sighs. “Or we find a place to spend the night, I get a shower and something to eat, and we crash for the night and deal with it tomorrow.”

“Or that.” Holtz squints at the dark, rain-soaked view outside the windshield. “You think that’s a motel down there?”

Erin unbuckles her seatbelt. “Only one way to find out.”

* * *

Walking in cold, autumn rain seems like it should wash away ectoplasm. Instead, the rain turns it into a weird, pasty layer of goo on Erin’s hands and coverall, and helps it seep through to her skin. Her hair is clumped and she probably looks like a wet dog as they stand in front of the check-in desk at the Starlite Motel, a single-story dive on the outskirts of town. 

“One room left,” the clerk tells them. “You want it? TV’s on the fritz.”

“We want it.” Erin slides her credit card across the desk.

They have to go back outside to get to the room, and Erin’s shivering from the cold when Holtz unlocks the door. Inside, there’s one bed, covered with a faded bedspread printed with stylized stars in blue and green. The flocked wallpaper matches.

Erin hangs in the doorway. It’s warm inside, the wall-thru heater chugging away and blowing out warm air, but she’s stuck on the threshold.

One bed. She thinks of Holtz, of what Holtz said that morning. _This one’s not a date._

Holtz puts a hand on Erin’s arm, and Erin jumps at the contact.

“Everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Erin says, even though it isn’t. Even though her brain is screaming at her and all she can pay attention to is the feeling of Holtz’s fingers against her arm.

“Go on in and take a shower,” Holtz says. She looks worried. It’s not an expression Erin’s seen often on Holtz’s face. “I’ll scrounge up some food.”

The bathroom fixtures have seen better days, the tub enamel scuffed and scarred, but everything seems clean enough. Erin strips off her coverall and goes to run the bath. Ectoplasm gets into every part of you, and Erin’s found showers don’t cut it. 

There’s a knock on the bathroom door.

“Erin?” It’s Holtz’s voice. 

Erin’s half-naked, and there’s only two towels, neither of them yet contaminated with the grime and ectoplasm. She stands behind the door, just barely opening it. 

Holtz’s hand appears through the cracked door, filled with hotel-sized soaps and shampoos.

“I picked the lock on the supply closet,” Holtz says. “Figured you’d need more soap.”

Erin feels her face flush. “Thanks.” 

She takes the soap and shampoo. Holtz’s hand retreats, but Holtz herself stays.

It feels like ages, standing there on either side of the flimsy bathroom door. Finally, Holtz speaks again.

“I’m sorry about the joke I made this morning,” she says. “I can take the couch tonight.”

“What?” Erin moves to open the door before she remembers — half-naked.

“When I said antiquing wasn’t a date.” 

Holtz is normally so sure of herself, dancing through life and flirting with everyone. She doesn’t sound sure of herself now. She sounds like she did when she made the toast, when she told them all how much they meant to her.

Erin can’t think of a way to respond. She’s suddenly sure, very sure, that even if Holtz was joking, she — Erin — wanted those to be dates. She thinks about Holtz in the sunshine, walking ahead of her, hair half-loose and flying around her face, and desperately wants. 

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Holtz says, her voice flat. “Like I said, bed’s all yours.” 

Erin’s drawing breath, trying to figure out what to say, how to say it.

“Holtz —” 

But Holtz is gone.

Erin groans and lets herself sink down to the hard, tile floor. She leans her head back against the bathroom wall.

She’s been wondering for a while. Maybe as long as she’s known Holtz. But they work together, and Holtz flirts with everyone, and Erin has a hard time believing she’s special, and —

_You’re scared, Gilbert._

It’s her own voice, even though it’s Abby’s words. Erin Gilbert, scaredy-cat. 

Scared about the paper. Scared about Holtz. 

What if she’s gotten everything she’s ever wanted, but she’s too scared to believe in it?

Erin makes herself get up from the floor and finish stripping her clothes off. The bathtub’s almost overflowing, and the water sloshes dangerously close to the edge when she gets in, but the warmth feels wonderful after a long day.

She uses every single one of the hotel shampoos, cleaning the ectoplasm out of her hair, and finishes with a final shower. She washes her clothes and wrings them out before hanging them on hangers from the curtain rod, over the heater. Maybe they’ll dry before they leave tomorrow. 

When Holtz gets back, Erin’s sitting by the heater, wrapped in a towel, trying to force the crappy hotel comb through her hair. 

Holtz sweeps her arm wide. “I have brought sustenance.”

“I called Abby about the paper,” Erin says. 

“Yeah?” Holtz puts a big bag emblazoned the name Chickadee Chicken onto the hotel’s wobbly table.

“You guys were right.” Erin gives up and puts the comb down. “I was scared. I told her to go ahead and submit.”

“That’s excellent.” Holtz meets Erin’s eyes, and there’s a long moment where they just look at one another. Erin’s the one who breaks it, looking down at the comb.

“Let me,” Holtz says. She produces several more hotel-sized bottles. “You think this works as leave-in conditioner?”

Erin groans. “Probably not.”

Holtz puts a little on her hands anyway, running them lightly over Erin’s scalp and down her head. Erin leans back, letting the tension in her shoulders dissolve as Holtz works the comb through her hair, starting at the bottom and working up one inch at a time, her fingers surprisingly gentle.

Erin’s eyes have drifted shut when Holtz pats her shoulder. “All done.”

“Thanks.” Erin bites her lip. “Holtz….”

“I got us sleep shirts.” Holtz puts the comb down and starts unpacking the bag she brought. She hands Erin an oversized t-shirt, light blue, with the Chickadee Chicken logo on the front: a strutting rooster, encouraging everyone to eat Chickadee Chicken (“Best Fried Chicken, Hudson River Valley Festival, 2014”). 

Erin goes to the bathroom to change into the t-shirt, which comes halfway down her thighs. If she weren’t thinking about how close Holtz is —

“I got everything,” Holtz says when Erin comes back, and given what’s on the table, everything sounds about right. There’s fried chicken, classic and with some kind of spice mix, and mac and cheese and biscuits and cucumber salad. 

Holtz hands Erin a paper plate. They clink their drumsticks together before they start eating, like a toast.

* * *

Erin’s half-asleep on the bed when Holtz gets out of the shower, wearing her own T-shirt. This one’s black, with the Chickadee Chicken logo wearing a pirate costume above the slogan SHIVER ME TENDERS.

Outside, the wind’s picked up, and Erin can hear rain hitting the windows. The heater’s blowing out warm air, keeping up with the chill. 

Holtz offers to take the couch again, and Erin finds herself stammering out an invitation to take half of the bed. She wants to say more, but she can’t find the words, can’t seem to figure out how to ask, and then Holtz is plugging her phone into a charger and it feels like it’s too late.

They lie under the covers, quiet on their separate sides. The lights are out, but the curtains don’t fully cover the windows. A thin line of light shines in from the parking lot floodlights. 

Erin thinks, desperately, of what to say. But by the time she rolls over to say it, Holtz is already asleep.

* * *

Erin’s dreaming that she’s on a ship at night, giant sails unfurled against an angry sky. The captain of the ship is a chicken, taller than Erin, wearing a giant tricorn hat and an eyepatch. He flaps one wing against the oncoming storm, and there’s a crashing sound.

“Did you hear that?”

Holtz’s voice weaves into Erin’s dream for a moment before Erin wakes up. The inside of the room is black, cave-black, the stripe of light from the curtains gone.

“What?” Erin rubs her eyes, but it’s still black. She can feel Holtz next to her, a source of warmth under the thin blanket. 

The mattress dips as Holtz gets up. Erin hears the rattle of the curtain being pulled back, but there’s no light until the sky suddenly splits with a flash of lightning.

“That explains it.” Holtz sits back down. Erin sees the curve of her cheek in another flash of lightning. “I thought Ecto 2 went up.”

“The power must be out.” Erin turns on her side, uncertain of the space between them. The heater’s off, and without the constant stream of warm air, she can feel the draft from the windows. 

Her brain catches up with what Holtz says. “Wait, could Ecto 2 go up? Are we carrying explosives?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Holtz gets back under the covers.

Erin worries about it. They watch the lightning, which grows fainter and less frequent, but the power doesn’t turn back on. 

She’s almost asleep when she feels Holtz shivering on the other side of the bed. 

“Come here,” Erin says, too sleepy to think better of it. Too sleepy to be scared. She gathers Holtz in, pressing herself close, her front to Holtz’s back under the thin covers. Their legs tangled together, bare skin pressing against bare skin.

Erin breathes into the hollow where Holtz’s neck meets her shoulder, and Holtz relaxes back into her. Slowly, Holtz’s shivering stops, and they fall back asleep.

* * *

Erin wakes up with the sun.

They’re snuggled together, Holtz sprawled on her back. Erin on her side, curled around Holtz. The early morning sunshine hits Holtz’s hair, catching the blonde flyaways surrounding her head like a halo.

Holtz’s face is gentle in sleep. Erin watches her, feeling like a voyeur but unable to make herself look away. To untangle herself from Holtz. _It might wake her up,_ she tells herself, but she knows it’s an excuse.

Erin’s still telling herself she needs to look away when Holtz’s eyes open.

“Hey.”

Busted. “Hey,” Erin says, careful, like it’s normal to wake up staring at a friend. Like nothing else is going on here.

But Holtz isn’t looking away.

“So, uh….” Erin bites her lower lip, thinking better, and then says it anyway. “Holtz, if I wanted those to be dates, would that be… okay?”

Holtz smiles at her, brilliant, and takes Erin’s hand from her hip. She kisses the tips of Erin’s fingers, slowly, teasingly, one at a time, sending tingles all the way down Erin’s arm, and then leans in and kisses Erin’s shoulder. Kisses Erin’s neck, nipping and sucking.

Erin’s breathless, wanting more, wanting — “Holtz?”

“You need a verbal answer?” Holtz says the words into Erin’s neck, and then Erin can’t take it anymore, and pulls Holtz up to kiss her on the lips.

It’s all the answer she needs.

* * *

Erin hangs in the doorway of Holtz’s lab. “Holtz?”

Holtz pushes her glasses back and grins. “Erin!” 

It’s still new, what the two of them have together. They haven’t officially told Patty and Abby yet, although Erin’s pretty sure they’ve figured it out. (She sometimes wonders if they figured it out before Erin did.) It’s wonderful, and it’s new, and Erin knows she shouldn’t be nervous, but sometimes she still is.

“There’s a vintage Halloween market over in the park,” Erin says. “Do you want to come with me? Like a date?”

“Absolutely,” Holtz says, dropping her soldering iron back onto her work bench.

“You can try on hats,” Erin says. “I mean, I think they let you try on hats. I don’t know how you feel about hats, really.” 

“I feel very good about hats.” Holtz pushes some switches, causing a small poof of magenta smoke, and then smiles. “Ready to go.”

“And we can get dinner after,” Erin says. “I mean, if you want to.” 

“My treat,” Holtz says.

“No way.” Erin grabs Holtz’s hand. “This time, it’s my turn.”


End file.
